Swearin’ Close Out Reunion Tour and Reveal a New Beginning
Swearin’ – Music Hall of Williamsburg – October 20, 2018
When Swearin’ called it a day a few years ago, they left behind a nearly flawless discography. Two full-lengths and an EP of pitch-perfect Breeders-meets–Built to Spill–inspired hook-filled tunes that mastered the subtle art of loud-quiet-loud that was unparalleled by the rest of their peers. The reasons behind them breaking up in the first place have been the focal point of most of the their recent press, so we won’t get into that here. But the band’s absence was a cause for concern for Superchunk’s Mac McCaughn and Laura Ballance as they had taken Swearin’ on tour last spring and signed them to an album deal with their label, Merge, for their highly anticipated new release, Fall into the Sun.
In reviews for other acts that have gone through this kind of break, journalists always use the phrase “they picked up right where they left off” as a good sign. But, Swearin’ are writing a newfound wisdom that only strengthens their attack. They finished their tour on Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. When the band took the stage a little after 10 p.m., it seemed like the crowd needed a little bit of a jolt. But as soon as singer Allison Crutchfield began playing the opening chords to the new song “Big Change,” you could sense a change in the room. From then on, Swearin’ were in complete control. The audience was transfixed as the five-piece switched back and forth from Crutchfield’s powerful, honey-coated vocals to lead guitarist and cosinger Kyle Gilbride’s piercing drawl.
As songwriters, Crutchfield and Gilbride tend to write from a place of hindsight and hard-won knowledge. And while they rarely tend to trade off lyrics in songs, you can tell that their collective energy is what makes Swearin’ such a special act among the sea of bands mining the sounds of early alternative rock. While they dusted off some of their best songs from their original run, like “Here to Hear” and “Dust in the Gold Sack,” the standout on Saturday was the Gilbride-led new song “Future Hell.” The track takes listeners on a hallucinatory journey through a world coming apart at the seams and ends with a blazing, fuzzed-out solo. The group closed their main set with the achingly beautiful “Movie Star,” off their 2012 self-titled album, which drew a swell of cheers from a roomful of people who had realized what they’d been missing during the years Swearin’ had been gone. For the encore, Crutchfield reappeared onstage solo to play the Fall into the Sun ballad “Anyway” before the rest of the band walked down the steel stairs from backstage to close out the performance with the new pulsating rocker “Grow into a Ghost.” While the band is in fighting shape, you could tell that this is a new beginning for one of indie rock’s underappreciated creative forces. Long live Swearin’. —Pat King | @MrPatKing
